The Power & The Glory
Gen 11:1-9
INTRO: Our text answer one of the great mysteries of life
1. The mystery of languages, The desire of man for unity, to be
ONE, yet ends up splitting mankind into fragments, schisms & cliques
I. An Undivided People v1-4
A. A United People:
1. Whole earth, everybody of one language & one speech
a. One language & one vocabulary
1. We in US speak English : But we don’t use the same vocabulary as Great Britain or Australia or in some cases of other states here in the USA
2. Totally undivided people, unified
3. Yet chap 10 indicates a movement & migration outward
a. Approx. 300 yrs after the flood, earth’s population is growing
b. People have the desire to go to new lands
1. Like the spokes on a wheel, people fanning out
4. Descendants of Ham, Noah’s son came to the land of Shinar
(Noah’s sons Shem, Ham & Japheth)
5. Shinar is the plain between the Tigris & Euphrates Rivers
a. Recognize the area, Also called Mesopotamia, Modern Iraq
B. An Inventive People v3
1. A early leader of the people is Gen 10:8-10 is Nimrod
a. Hunter, leader, Assertive Aggressive, Ambitious
b. Began to build cities, Kingdoms
2. See their inventiveness is their adaptation to a new area
a. Not the availability of rocks as before in Eastern turkey
Mt Ararat area
b. Learned how to make brick out of mud
1. First sun bake, then in furnaces
2. No lime for Cement for mortar, but found natural bitumen gooey
tar & asphalt,
c. Substitute stone & cement
C. An ambitious People
1. Learn new techniques & find use for new & greater uses
2. Building a city
3. City life: Cities have many advantages
a. Security, Supplies, Economics, Culture, Companionship &
all the other worldly pleasures
b. Also a power base to the most ambitious
1. City supplies the needs & hungers of the flesh & mind of man
4. Let’s build a Tower!
a. But the tower is designed to satisfy the spirit of man
b. Idea of location, Babylon which the ruins have been discovered
& there are some remains of towers later built but not to the great height
c. From the remnants of the later towers called ziggurats
1. Believed this great tower, a giant spiral upward w/ a shrine on top
d. A religious Structure, intended to expose the mysteries of heaven
& God to man
1. It was obviously impressive to them & would be for us to see the
massive structure
5. A unifying force. Hold the community together
a. collective project, a reason to stay
b. the natural drive of man to move, spread, seek freedom
1. But also a need to be of something Big
c. Of course those with power want more power, can’t have
that if people leave
6. But it is also clear they were thinking of it as a means of
communication & contact with God
a. Sounds like they built a city & didn’t want to leave God
out, so they build the tower to honor him, right?
D. A Humanistic People
1. Motto of humanity is “Lets make a name for our self”
2. Basic philosophies of humanism is “glory to man in the
highest, for man is the master of things”
a. Humanism teaches man is at the center of all things
b. We do not a deity, man can save himself
3. The fact that this was a religious tower, & yet built to make
a name for man, reveals the master motive behind religion
a. Man wants to share the glory with God
b. Comprehend religion of the world isn’t about God & His
will but man & his glory
1. Religion in every culture is about man wanting what is rightfully
God alone
4. The Grandiose structure was undoubtedly intended to be a
means by which man would glorify God
a. But no doubt there were monuments, plaques and signs
glorifying the master minds & leaders who lead & guided
to its building
b. So it wasn’t really about glorifying God but man & is
ingenuity & abilities
c. Religion is always about glorifying man’s good
5. No man doesn’t want to eliminate God from the picture
a. He is a good excuse to glorify men & have power over
other’s lives
b. Atheism is too barren, too pessimistic & morally bankrupt
to live for very long
1. The Soviet Union discovered that
c. But we do want to keep God under control. Keep Him in
His place
1. Separation of church from state, keep God & all those who are his
out of power
2. We can’t do what we want, if God has His way
d. So we have a society that has God for emergencies, Spare
Tire God.
1. Don’t call on us God, we’ll call on you
2. Babel all over again in America
II. The Reaction of God v5-6 Great Irony
A. The Lord came down, Is this a primitive man’s thinking?.
1. That God really doesn’t need to come down to see what man
is doing
a. God is all-knowing so it is a concept to express human like
qualities on God
2. To say that God had to come down for a peek at things
implies He is cut off from the realities of our life
a. He is up there in heaven with no idea of what is happening
1. Similar to the Old man up stairs, lost touch
2. Need certain boys, messengers, angels Prophets to keep Him
informed
a. Hey God, do you know what they’re doing?
3. So God decides to come down to investigate
a. That is a primitive concept of God
3. And that would be a contradiction of what Genesis already
has revealed of God
a. Omnipresent God creator of large & small, universe &
smallest details of life
b. Omnipotent all Powerful, All Mighty unlimited in power
c. Omniscient All Knowing, knows all things
4. There this is not an Primitive concept
a. But an Ironic expression
1. An humorous expression, designed to indicate to us in a clever way
the ridiculousness of this whole situation
5. Think: Here is a tower that is to take God’s breath away in
its Greatness & therefore threaten His place
a. Men think! “Here we are, we wild Bold creatures, we’ve dared
invade heaven. You better watch out God!’
6. But in reality the tower is so tiny God can’t see it
a. Has to bend down & strain to see it
1. See the contrast? The ridiculous assumption of men & the greatness
of the Being of God.
B. The Divine analysis of the situation 3 fold finding
1. Man’s Unity v6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language;
2. He Notes their Creativity “and this they begin to do:
a. This is only the beginning, What will they think of next?
b. that creativity is a part of the nature God placed in man
1. Part of being created in His image.
a. But with the fall the creativity is perverted ..therefore…
b. All Art, entertainment movies, music or reading is not always
fit for consumption
c. God acknowledges man is inventive & united but
3. 3rd Unlimited ability “and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” Sound up to date?
a. We hear it all the time. There is nothing we can’t do if we
put our minds to it.
1. There is no problem we can’t solve, nothing we can’t do
b. God is saying man working together, given enough time to
learn, will do some amazing things
1. Now we clone life, Probably can or will clone humans
2. Find a cure for every disease in time common cold
3. Resurrect life, cryogenics
a. Travel to other planets, already doing what others only imagined
c. God given abilities, but also a sin nature that perverts great ideas
1. God is saying, “If man puts his genius to any given specific task, then his inborn creativeness and his persistent spirit will solve the problem eventually.”
2. With each great accomplishment, human pride claims God’s glory
III. God’s Action v7-9
A. What was a reason for the tower, so as to not be scatter?
1. But the net result, they built their city & tower & they were
scattered all over the earth
a. What is behind God’s actions? Is He jealous of man?
1. Is God threatened by the tower
2. Is He afraid of men’s ability to reach into heaven?
3. Has He lost control of man & His inventive ways?
b. Man wants to think we are in control & we regulate God
to a quiet corner to only come out when wanted
1. After all man can do ANY thing we want if we want it bad enough
2. Real question isn’t “What can man DO?” but What will man BE?
a. Is man about Himself? Self-glory? The center of things
1. The master of the universe?
3. God Knows this can’t be,
a. Man is only a creature not the creator
1. We are a dependent Being, Always was, always will be
2. The very forces he thinks he can manipulate to accomplish his aims
are forces that are part of his own life which he did not make &
upon which he continually depends
b. Therefore man will never be God, though He wishes
**Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mythology. Learn a little & dangerous
1. Haven’t learned enough
4. That is the story of Babel & modern man
a. Man & our inventiveness thinks we can master our
universe & even our creator
1. Every-time we solve a problem we create more troubles
b. The vast scheme of things, to comprehend reality of
creation, creator universe eludes man
5. Therefore the reason God comes down to investigate &
decided to confound the languages & scatter
a. Is ultimately an act of Mercy
1. God is saying, “Let’s stop man, in his folly from destroying himself
2. Man is not God enough to handle it.
B. Imagine the situation that first morning!
1. Show up to work, the foreman hollers “Get to Work!”
a. Men look at him with weird faces, “What did he say?”
1. Men start talking to each other but not communicating
2. Total mass confusion
2. Today there are 6912 living languages, in 94 Families
a. 6 Major Language Families with at least 5% of world’s
population speaking language from that family
1. Total 64:87% of world speaking those 6 families
b. Other 88 language families are spoken by 35.13%
3. The UN uses technologies & translators to try to
communicate, let alone bring world peace
a. For all their efforts, not a lot of success
4. Man is still haunted by a lack of unity
a. The dream endures
b. Pride of man still says if we can all come together, have a bigger community, one nation, one world, one peace
c. God still scatters
1. God continues to humble man everywhere, to bring low the proud
5. That is why Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount “Blessed [are] the poor in spirit: (The man who has nothing, the person who has lost everything which he can depend, outside and inside himself) for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Mt 5:3
a. When you have nothing else to trust, your good works,
religion, ability, talents
b. Then God is ready & able to save
6. Some say Coke is known world wide, others say music is
the international language
a. But the submit it is only the Love of Christ that crosses all
boundaries
Eph 3:19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
Eph 2:14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition [between us];
Ro 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
Col 1:20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, [I say], whether [they be] things in earth, or things in heaven.
